Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line

Revolutionary Workers Congress

Movin’ On!

First Published:Movin’ On!, Vol. 1, No. 2, June/July 1975.Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul SabaCopyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.

In the last issue we announced that the Black Workers Congress had changed its name to the Revolutionary Workers Congress. The name of our former paper, “The Communist” was also changed. These changes represent a much deeper change in the organization which, in one sense, has been taking place since the inception of the BWC in December, 1970. At that time, we were an all-black organization striving for Marxism-Leninism Mao Tse Tung Thought. Our political focus was directed solely towards the struggle of the Afro-American people. This had to do, on the one hand with our lack of understanding of the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism, and on the other, to the development as an organization which grew out of the spontaneous struggles of the masses of people. Over the years we have, through study and practice, come to see the incorrectness of this position. Approximately one year ago we became a multi-national organization made up of comrades of all nationalities.

We had planned to change the name of the organization some time ago, but the outbreak of the two-line struggle in the BWC held this up. Our development is a reflection of the growing understanding within our movement that within the U.S. the proletariat consists of Afro-American, Asian, Puerto-Rican, Chicano, Arab and other oppressed nationalities, and white workers. Through our struggles and study we are coming to understand more of how the unity between the working class and the oppressed nationalities should be built. This unity can only be built by putting proletarian ideology in the forefront, building a multi-national Communist Party to lead the revolutionary struggle of the masses and by fighting for the right of self-determination for oppressed nations.

“The Communist”, our former paper, represented an attempt to carry forth the struggle against revisionism and opportunism, but it suffered from many weaknesses. Firstly, as a reflection of the “left” line in the organization, it directed itself to the relatively small number of people who make up the communist movement. It tried to model itself after Lenin’s “Iskra” in a dogmatic manner, i.e., it did not really understand “Iskra’s” role and the particularities of Russia at that time, nor of the U.S. at present. It belittled the task of political exposures and the role of a newspaper as a collective propagandist, agitator and organizer and turned the newspaper into a theoretical journal.

We have changed the name of our paper from “The Communist” to “MOVIN’ ON!”, not because we have ceased to be communists, but because we are striving to become better ones. In the past, under the guise of “reaching the most advanced,” stereotyped writing and high-sounding verbose, repetitious articles were substituted for concrete analysis of concrete situations. This was done in a language the masses – even the advanced – could not understand.

“MOVIN’ On!” will seek to remedy these shortcomings. It will be a paper that will combine a high Marxist-Leninist theoretical standard and political level with a truly mass character. In other words, though it will be directed to those people with a certain level of political consciousness, it will also be a mass paper in the sense that it supports, analyzes and Integrates itself with the struggle to unite advance workers and Marxist-Leninists into a single Communist Party, and the struggle for proletarian revolution in the United States.